On the Beach controls a 17pc share of the online short-haul holiday market and competes against travel giants Tui and Thomas Cook by selling holidays to places including the Balearics, Turkey and Greece and the Algarve.

On the Beach competes against TUI and Thomas Cook

The UK business started selling holidays to Swedish holidaymakers earlier this year and the company has laid out plans to expand into Norway or Denmark in the “short term”.

The company, which is chaired by former Odeon Cinemas boss Richard Segal, had earnings of £13.4m last year from 325,867 bookings. It spends half its revenue on marketing.

Around 16.5m UK holidaymakers book package trips each year – accounting for almost half of all overseas holidays, according to travel association Abta. Around 45pc of all packaged beach holidays are booked online in the UK, a market that is expected to grow by 10pc over the next few years.

On the Beach’s flotation follows a series of listings by Inflexion over the past 18 months, including National Accident Helpline, the claims company known for its plasticine dog adverts; IT business FDM; and fund administrator Sanne Group. National Accident Helpline is up 75pc since listing, FDM shares have risen by 34pc and Sanne is up by 45pc.

In total Inflexion has exited 12 businesses in the last 12 months, generating a total of £1.2bn. Earlier this week it sold home shopping channel Ideal Shopping Direct to Blackstone in a deal worth roughly £200m.

Inflexion has listed four companies on the London Stock Exchange in the past 18 months  Photo: JONATHAN LODGE

The City had been expecting a rush of stock market listings after the summer break but many companies have held back from pulling the trigger while the stock market turmoil in China persisted.

Hastings, the car insurer, and Worldpay, the payments processor, have in the last week made their multi-billion float plans public as markets settled.

US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellan  Photo: Bloomberg Worldpay is said to have decided to pursue a stock market listing instead of a sale to French bidder Ingenico after the US Federal Reserve stabilised markets by keeping an interest rates rise on hold.

Housebuilder McCarthy Stone is also expected to launch an IPO after being on investors’ watchlists for the past 18 months. National Australia Bank is mulling a sale or flotation of its UK operations Clydesdale, while publisher and events group Top Right Group has also lined up banks for a £1bn float.